Roadside mailboxes are often placed one hundred to two hundred or more feet from a dwelling. Consequently mail is delivered at unpredictable times during the day and week sometimes causing a homeowner to walk a long distance just to determine if mail has been delivered. This can be a great inconvenience especially during winter and other periods of adverse weather, particularly for the elderly and the infirm. Other mailboxes in the past have used indicators to allow homeowners to visually determine mail delivery such as seen in Publication No. US 2002/0152949 which causes a gravity fall of a small signal element.
In order to better remedy this problem and provide comfort and convenience to the homeowner and to effectively communicate an alert of all mail deliveries, the present invention was conceived and one of its objectives is to provide an inexpensive solution to an age old problem.
It is another objective of the present invention to provide a relatively large signaling device for easily attaching to a mailbox which will visually alert the homeowner when mail is delivered.
It is still another objective of the present invention to provide a mailbox with a wheeled control bar which is affixed by a front linkage to the front door and to a pivotable rear signal flap by a rear bracket which, during operation will cause the signal flap to raise from an obscured horizontal position to a prominent vertical position when the front door is opened during mail insertion.
It is yet another objective of the present invention to provide a large, rigid signal flap for a mailbox which includes indicia thereon for easily viewing by a homeowner from a remote location for determining mail delivery.
It is a further objective of the present invention to provide a rear signal flap which when raised to a vertical position is magnetically, releasably joined to the rear panel of the mailbox to prevent wind or other adverse weather conditions from causing the signal flap to inadvertently pivot downwardly to its former obscure horizontal position.
It is yet a further objective of the present invention to provide a kit to retrofit a typical mailbox with a signal flap and operating mechanism.
Various other objectives and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art as a more detailed description is set forth below.